in a pickle

One of the problems with carrying on a lifelong love affair with words is that words tend to have more power over you than they might over other people. Take me and pickles, for instance. For some reason, I was ten years old before I tasted pickles for the first time. Till then, I had always imagined them to be some sweet, cool, crisply tasty delight-- sort of halfway between the flavors of mint and apples, I suppose. Somehow, I had come to this conclusion based solely on the name: pickles. A cute, crunchy, piquant sort of word, in my estimation. So words literally failed me when I discovered that a pickle, in fact, was sourish, flabby, and had only a vague approximation of sweetness irrevocably tainted by strong scent-taste of brine. Perhaps I was a little too young at the time to appreciate what I have been told is an acquired taste, but sadly, that early crushing disappointment has forever prejudiced me against the entire genera of pickles. We do have a bottle of them at home because Dean happens to like them, but whenever I open the refrigerator, I eye the aforementioned bottle with distaste and vague suspicion.


Such is the woe and wonder wrought by words.